Not even the 2020 period escaped unscathed.
The fastest recorded 28 days (since 1960) occurred in 2020, with the Earth completing the revolutions around the milliseconds axis faster than average.
That’s not particularly scary – the orbit of the planet changes slightly all the time, driven by changes in atmospheric pressure, winds, ocean currents and the movement of the heart.
But it’s inconvenient for international timekeepers, who use highly accurate atomic clocks to measure the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) by which everyone sets their clocks. When a celestial time, determined by the time it takes for Earth to make one full motion, moves from UTC more than 0.4 seconds, UTC gets changed.
To date, these changes have been a “second jump” for the year in late June or December, bringing celestial and atomic time back in line.
These leap seconds have been addressed as the overall motion of the Earth’s orbit has been slowing since proper satellite measurement began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Since 1972, scientists have added seconds every year and a half, on average, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The last addition came in 2016, when on New Year’s Eve at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, there was an additional “second jump”.
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However, according to Time and Date, the recent acceleration in Earth spinning has scientists talking for the first time about a second-place negative jump. Instead of adding a second, they may need to remove one.
That’s because the average length of a day is 86,400 seconds, but a cloudy day in 2021 clocks in at a shorter 0.05 milliseconds, on average. Over the year, that adds up to a weak 19 milliseconds in atomic time.
“It is very possible that a negative jump will be required either if the Earth’s rotation rate rises further, but it is too early to say whether this is likely to happen,” said physicist Peter Whibberley from the national physics laboratory. in the UK. The Telegraph.
“International discussions are also ongoing about the fate of a leap second, and it is also possible that the need for a negative jump could either be the decision towards ending jump seconds for good. “
The year 2020 was already faster than usual, cue sighs of relief. According to Time and Date, the Earth broke its previous record for the shortest celestial day, set in 2005, 28 times.
On the shortest day of this year, July 5, the Earth completed a rotation of 1.0516 milliseconds faster than 86,400 seconds. July 19 was the shortest day in 2020, when the planet completed a single spin of 1.4602 milliseconds faster than 86,400 seconds.
According to the NIST, there are pros and cons of leap seconds. They are useful for ensuring that celestial observation is aligned with the time of the clock, but can be a problem for some data logging applications and telecommunications infrastructure.
Some scientists at the International Telecommunication Union have suggested allowing the gap between celestial and atomic time to widen to the need for a “leap hour”, which would reduce telecommunications anxiety. (Astronauts had to make their own changes in the meantime.)
It is the responsibility of the International Service for Global Circulation and Reference Systems (IERS) in Paris, France, to determine whether a second or second jump is required. Currently, the IERS does not show any new jump seconds to be added, according to the service’s World Orientation Center.
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This article was originally published by Live Science. Read the original article here.